Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics: update to 31 March 2026
The annual update of Scottish Welfare Fund Statistics for 2025-26. This includes annual statistics on Community Care Grants and Crisis grants from 2013, as well as quarterly breakdowns from 2021.
Part of
Decisions were made on 79,560 Community Care Grant applications in 2025-26 and 41,840 awards were made, representing an acceptance rate of 53% (Table 19), six percentage points higher than in 2024-25 (Table 23). At the same time, decisions were made on 257,980 Crisis Grant applications in 2025-26 and 167,990 awards were made with an acceptance rate of 65% (Table 24), two percentage points higher than in 2024-25. (Table 28).
The highest Community Care Grant acceptance rate was in Inverclyde (81%), and the lowest was in Stirling (34%). Compared to 2024-25, acceptance rates increased in 24 local authorities, decreased in six and stayed the same in two (Table 23). The highest Crisis Grant acceptance rate was in Inverclyde (89%) and the lowest was in Midlothian (52%). Compared to 2024-25, acceptance rates increased in 24 local authorities, decreased in six and stayed the same in two (Table 28).
Increasing pressure on budgets has weighed on acceptance rates in recent years, and they reached lows during 2024 (Table 22, Table 27, Chart 6). However, rates bounced back after additional funding was provided, and have been broadly steady during 2025-26.
Chart 6: Community Care Grant and Crisis Grant acceptance rates – Quarterly
This chart shows the time series of the rate of CCG and Crisis awards per quarter since April 2021.
The number of Community Care Grants awarded in 2025-26 (41,840 awards) was 11% higher (4,050 awards) than in 2024-25; and the number of Crisis Grants awarded in 2021 (167,990 awards) was 9% higher (14,555 awards) than in 2024-25 (Table 21, Table 26).
During the year, numbers of Crisis Grant awards were steady until the post-Christmas peak (Chart 7). The number of Community Care Grant awards was broadly stable through the year.
Chart 7: Number of Scottish Welfare Fund Awards – Scotland – Monthly
This chart shows the time series of the number of CCG and Crisis awards per month since April 2021.
At local authority level, the greatest increase in Community Care Grant awards compared to 2024-25 was in Edinburgh (65% increase), although that was compared to an exceptionally quiet year (Table 21). The greatest decreases were in Fife and Orkney (-21%). The greatest increase in Crisis Grant awards was in Shetland (74% increase) (Table 26, Table 6). The greatest decrease was in Dundee (-8%).
In 2025-26, the most common reason for Community Care Grant application rejections remained ‘Reasons for application do not meet the conditions for an award’ (52%) (Table 30), and the most common reason for Crisis Grant application rejections remained ‘Excluded as a result of previous application history’ (27%) (Table 32).